Honestly!!! Who needs a teething toy...

...when you've got perfectly good toes to chew on!!! :-)






Equally in the culinary department, may we recommend a couple recipes we've enjoyed lately!

These are from one of our favorites, Eating Well. Eating Well sure lives up to it's subtitle: Where Good Taste Meets Good Health!

The first is Sesame-Honey Tempeh and Quinoa Bowl.... except I made it Sesame-Honey Chicken and Quinoa! :-) I've never used Tempeh and figured chicken would be just great... and it was! Give it a shot this was "yumm-oh", as we say around here! :-)


The second was Hungarian Beef Goulash . Delicious! Super crock-pot dish! We ate it over rice. I did makes some fairly significant changes when I made it and we enjoyed how it came out... however, according to the recipe, it might be even better! Instead of diced tomatoes, I put in tomato sauce. Also I did NOT put in the beef broth, I simply threw in four beef boulion cubes. Not having the extra liquid probably made it a thicker and richer sauce, and I really liked it that way. Besides, with the tomato sauce and slow cooking the meat, we ended up with plenty of sauce! Also didn't use the caraway seeds, bay leaves, or parsley. They would probably be great additions, but turned out just fine without. Give it a try! This ones a keeper!

Note: I was just now reading online that cooking caraway seeds to long can turn a dish bitter, so if you do use 'em, might want to add them at the end. I have no experience from caraway... so I don't know!

Beautiful Mornings

Since Tuesday we've been blessed with some beautiful, sunny, cool days. Several of those mornings, the kids and I spent time out in the yard. I was able to do some yard clean up and we let the chickens out. Clara is now able to catch them fairly regularly. Some of them are "smart" and just run away, and in those cases she isn't able to get them. However, some times they just freeze and sort of hunker down, in which case she is able to simply pick them up. She has been having a grand old time carting them around, bouncing them, showing them to Kiah, carrying them into the bushes, talking to them, etc. And believe it or not, they put up with it quite nicely!

Down At The River

Went down to a little beach on the river with Emmie Lou a few weeks ago. Girls had a grand old time, as you can see! They're like two peas in a pod when it comes to water... very little fear! When it came to Emmie Lou, it seemed more like no fear! :-)

Month in Review: September 2010

Wow. September is already gone and October begun! Time surly is flying by! Ok, a quick recording of this past month and a few of it's happenings for this family.

We started it off with a Labor Day trip to York, PA to visit family. The kidos did well on the long trip and what a blessing it was to visit and spend time with some relatives, who we haven't yet got to know too well!

We started up a home Bible study, primarily for people in the neighborhood who are interested in learning more about the Lord and His Word!

Stephen was very blessed with a more interesting job at work to spend time on and has been enjoying that. He was able to work some long days so that he could take a day off this week. On his long days, we were able to go and meet him for a picnic supper!

Clara continued to grow and learn so quickly! She enjoyed playing in the river with her friend Emmie Lou, playing at the park, playing with neighborhood girls who would come over, painting, and entertaining her little brother. She is popping out with longer and longer sentences and keeps making us laugh with funny stuff she says. Here are a few examples:

The other day she and I were walking out to the car. It was about the fourth day in a row that was grey and wet. It was also a warm day, so add muggy to the grey and wet. Well, we go walking out and head to the car when I hear a little girl say "Priee (pretty) day, Mommy. Priee day." Made my morning! :-)

She called me "honey". :-)

She's been been using cute little phrases like "Let's see" and "hold on".

Kiah-man (or Ki-boy, as his sister likes to call him) lived his fifth month on the outside. He is getting so big and cuter and cuter. He's been a happy, easy going little guy. Such a blessing. Sleeping through the night has been hit and miss :-/ But last night was wonderful! He went down a little late, but slept until 8:00 this morning! What a treat! Kiah also popped in his first two teeth this last month. They make his adorable smile even cuter!

Our once a month young peoples Bible study started our new topic, which is an in-depth look at the offerings, primarily found in the first several chapters in Leviticus. Before that we had done a study on the book of Joshua. We have been so encouraged and blessed by the young people that are a part of this study!

I've been keeping busy with my responsibilities as wife, mommy and homemaker! It truly is such a wonderful job and such a privilege to be able to stay home with my little family. Sure, there are days when I would like to "clock-out"... but I wouldn't trade it!

One of my new interests is learning more about using herbs for natural healing and general health. I've been learning quite a bit and enjoying it! One of these days I might have to share some of what I've been learning! I love The Bulk Herb Store! They have tons of free information and you can buy bulk herbs at SUCH reasonable prices. Right now I'm sipping a cup of echinacea and peppermint tea, sweetened with honey. Echinacea is good for boosting your immunities. Peppermint has health benefits too, but we mostly drink it for the great flavor!

September was a month full of challenge, joy and great blessing! Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Memories

The pictures of Hil and Stephen, in my last post, reminded me of these ones of Clara with her Daddy! Had to go find 'em!


Cute Little Feet!

Playin' With Daddy

Clara hit the hay really early last night and Kiah-man got to have some play time with just him and Daddy! :-)

Enjoy!

Now That's A Mouth Full!

Claires popped out a rather long sentence today... of course, it was a sentence of instructing little brother to behave himself!

We were getting ready to make granola and she had pulled out the oatmeal (pronounced something like "e-mail"). We had it sitting up on the counter. I was holding Kiah and Claires was standing on a chair, when out comes this very "big sisterly" type admonition.

"N-touch e-mail Ki-boy. K?" Translation: "Don't touch oatmeal Ki-boy. K?" :-) Gotta love it.

Speaking of granola, I did one of the simplest versions of granola ever today... and once I've tried a bowl of it, I'll have to give a report on the results. It contains simply: oatmeal, flaxseed, almonds, raisin, craisins, olive oil and honey... and that's it! Super simple... and healthy!

The Late Night Meeting on the Lord's Day

This is S: I was in the kitchen and G told me that I need to come to the kid's room to see the "meeting" that was going on. Once I saw it and heard the spontaneous singing of this "meeting" I had to grab the camera. First of all, Clara's bed has a shelf right at mattress level, so to keep her pillow from slipping out, we filled her headboard shelf with hymn books that were given to us. Below is what was happening. I took a little video but we can't post video yet. You would have heard a little of the singing. :o)







Makes me think of the following:
...a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife....Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! 2 kings 5 (i.e. - waited on the prophet like the girl waited on the wife.) little truth still equals truth.

...And Moses said unto Korah, ...seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hah separated you from the congregation of Isr. to bring you near to Himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister unto them? Num 16

Unto you therefore which believe He is precious....

Hold 'Im!

"Hold 'im!" That's how Clara lets us know she wants to hold her little brother. :-) She likes to hold him, but it usually only lasts for a few moments. Yesterday, she was doing such a great job and it was soooooo cute, so I ran and crabbed the camera and got a couple precious shots.

Claires is a great sissy. She loves to goof off and make Kiah laugh and smile. However, we have to watch her, as she can get too rough pretty quickly.

And if "Hold 'im!" is what she says when she wants to hold Hil, "Hol-jee" what she says when she wants us to hold her. She'll bounce up and down sometimes, going "Hol-jee, hol-jee, hol-jee!!!" And if you didn't know what she was wanting... it might take you a while to figure it out! :-)

More Of That Tummy Time!

Clara thinks tummy time together is just so great, as you can see!!! Kiah-man... mmmmmm... not too crazy about it just yet.

Fort Fun... Living Up To It's Name

A couple days ago we enjoyed trying out a different park, called Fort Fun! Good name for it. We made the excursion with our neighbor and her little girl, Emmie Lou, who is a month older then Clara. Fun times were had. One of Momma's favorite parts was that it was a beautiful day and there were quite a few trees, which gave lovely shade!










Fun times with Emmie Lou and new friends!



These twins were just too cute! You should have seen them toddling around! Their names were Hope and Faith!

Sweet Little Hands Discover Sweet Little Feet!

Kiah-man has been working on the challenging art of reaching and grabbing things! And in the last few days he has discovered these neat little things that are always there on the ends of his legs and can be grabbed with his sweet little hands! :-)



After seeing Kiah get his picture taken, somebody else seemed to want a picture taken of HER "footies"! :-) So, there you have it:



Stay tuned! Hoping to come back later today with some pictures from our adventure to fort fun!

Two Precious Blessings!

They are already becoming buddies!

Two-for-one

Opened up our first ever double-yoker from our chickens! I was pretty happy....!

One At Four

Made a discovery today. Our little fella has a baby white ivory that has popped through! He's growing so quickly! Four months already and the first tooth already coming in! Solid foods, here we come!!! :-) He'd been doing a lot of chewing on his hands and drooling all over the place... but very thankfully, hadn't been too fussy! May the others come in just as easily!!! :-)

In other news, we got home this evening from an enjoyable trip up north to visit relatives! What a treat! My second cousin, Grace, and her husband kindly invited us up for the holiday weekend, and showered us with kind hospitality! Clara had a great time getting to play with their girls and we were able to get to know Grace and Josh more, as well as visit with other relatives! What a blessing to have such dear family!


And a first tooth is not Kiah-man's only new thing these days. About a week ago he made the transition from pink bassinet, to the crib, which has taken on a new look! Much more manly then that hand-me-down bassinet from Sissy! The kidos are now sharing a room, and so far, the transition has gone fairly smothly! What a blessing!!!

In Recognition...

Stephen says the new blog design is in recognition of Hurricane Earl... our first hurricane. :-)

A Treat

One of the treats in our life is getting to go have a picnic lunch with Daddy! We hadn't done one in quite some time... but that ended a couple days ago when the three of us headed on down to Daddy's work and spent lunch break with him!


Waiting for Daddy



Kiah-man was so content lying there on the blanket kicking and grabbing the blanket.


And, of course, Sissy had a great time as usual! Special times!